Somewhere on Issria river, twentieth day of second moon of winter, 789 Imperial calendar.

One, two, three, four… Farrow counted with his fingers pressed against the pulsating vein in her wrist while grains of sand trickled in his compact hourglass. When the minute passed, he tucked her arm away, wary of any sudden or unnatural movements and noted the number in his journal. Same count as before. Consistent with what he observed natural resting rhythm for her body. Her breathing pace did not change as well. There were no abnormalities compared to what he measured when they gathered baseline data. For all he knew, Varea slept with a dreamless sleep induced by his potion.

He spent three days gathering baseline data about her body while she compiled seven scrolls filled to the brim with elegant script of complicated shapes. His introductory letter, an account of her journey, orders for palace staff, request for assistance to whoever may meet him and, if he believed her, her last will in case if all this went wrong.

So far it didn’t. A result as frightening as his memories of the first wave of the disease were. He never wished death upon anyone but… no. The woman must live. He will make sure of it. Right now, all he wanted was to know whether his potion or his theory were in the wrong.

His cure, as a first step, induced deep sleep in whoever took it. Same thing happened with her. The woman faded away within minutes of drinking his potion and so far, showed no signs of the reaction she described the other victims experienced.

Farrow run his hand along her arm, smoothing out her ruffled fur. And found himself captivated with her body. Not quite a beast. Not human either. A perfect amalgamation of both.

As far as he could tell without cutting open her flesh, her skeletal structure mimicked that of a human with some differences, the skull and the bones of her feet and hands. Her kin had four toes on each foot and even in her human form, her hands had the ability to extend and retract their nails. As for her skull… it was amazing. He had no other way to describe it. Years back he would pay a fortune in gold for a chance to experiment on such specimen.

But this is no time nor place for such actions, he reminded himself when he found his hands busy sketching the patters of her fur in his journal. While she slept, he filled no less than fifty pages with sketches of her and her body.

A natural perversion so common for him and those of his profession. To study every unknown encountered. Such was her body. An unknown he yearned to explore.

A perversion he had to rein in to remain civilized. One does not cut open his date no matter how interesting she might be. He chuckled to himself recalling the words of his old master.

Golden iris. Eyes without whites. Steel grey fur with white undercoat and black and blue markings. He annotated his drawings and watched her chest sway.

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While to her it made no difference what kind of appearance she took, they decided to make her assume the form most common among her people. About one third feral and two thirds humanoid. Not human. Humanoid. [Banshur] was the word she used and for the lack of a better alternative she translated it as humanoid although that wasn’t its exact meaning. Varea made that distinction at every given possibility. Were there any other races that walked on two legs which humans had no idea of? A topic to explore later. Right now, he had to focus on the pandemic and the way it affected her people.

That brought him another curiosity. Not all her people had the gift to mold their body to their will. Many were born without such ability. As she explained, a talent like hers manifested in one out of a hundred individuals. The degree of control differed but those who possessed her gift could at will go back and forth between human or somewhat human appearance and its feral or hybrid counterpart. Some, like her, could assume the complete shape of their feral. Which she demonstrated, chasing him around the deck on all fours until laughter made her collapse and roll on the deck while chittering.

The degree of control one retained while transformed differed between people but in her case, as she explained, her feral manifested by nothing more but a desire to sleep the entire day.

A relief, given her sizable fangs and paws that could lock around his head without much of a difficulty. Even now in this hybrid form he admired her feline smile.

Varea did not go into the exact details regarding the feral as it had more to do with spiritual believes rather than any scientific knowledge but explained that her people could turn themselves into the form of the animal of their [asheri]. An avatar or goddess avatar depending on the translation.

Her bare chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. He brought his hand to her breast. No significant changed there. Her erected nipples were poking out of her fur and the breasts themselves appeared swollen. An odd reaction if any. Possibly one of the herbs interfering with her cycle. Some women complained that his cure deregulated their cycle with one case reporting complete loss of monthly bleeding. He made a note in his journal to verify that before putting a listening tube against her chest.

Well, her heart, lungs and intestines sounded normal. Or at least he couldn’t hear the sounds that would signal trouble both in humans and other animals he treated before. So far so good. Another note in his journal.

Farrow put his hands on the sides of the woman’s fluffy neck and tried to feel for the bulbus protrusions. These odd organs often swelled if his patients were sick but, if she even had such organ, he could not feel anything significant there. That left him with her mouth. Careful, he spread her lips and inspected her gums. No change there as well. Fresh, healthy pink. If she were infected or if the cure failed, these would turn either white or deep blue.

He checked his journal, for any other observations he made yesterday. Nothing seemed out of ordinary. Well, he wasn’t sure what was considered ordinary for her kin, but she appeared to be the healthiest person he ever saw.

Completing this final check, Farrow put his patient on her side which earned him an angry swat from her tail. Her people were not meant to sleep on their backs. Speaking of sleep, she drank one whole vial of concentrated solution. This much would keep an adult man his size asleep for about five to seven days. During that time, they would feed him water mixed with honey but given her insane recovery, Farrow suspected she may wake up after no more that three days. Which was tomorrow. Although, just in case, he mixed a batch o fresh honey water.

Putting a blanket over his guest, his mind went back to his grim thoughts.

The cure was fine. He had no doubt of it since yesterday.

He clenched his fists to steady his shaking hands.

Whatever her people caught, that was not sogu fever.